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The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. For over three generations, the Academy has connected millions of people to great poetry through programs such as National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world; Poets.org, the Academy’s popular website; American Poets, a biannual literary journal; and an annual series of poetry readings and special events. Since its founding, the Academy has awarded more money to poets than any other organization.

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Michele Wolf was raised in South Florida. She received a BS in public communication from Boston University and an MS in journalism from Columbia University. She is the author of Immersion (The Word Works, 2011) and Conversations During Sleep (Anhinga Press, 1998), winner of the 1997 Anhinga Prize for Poetry. Wolf has received fellowships from the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, Maryland; the Edward F. Albee Foundation; and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, among others. She teaches at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

The Great Tsunami

She recognizes its crest in the way he looks at her.
The wave is as vast as the roiling mass in the Japanese
Print they had paused in front of at the museum,
Capped with ringlets of foam, all surging sinew.
That little village along the shore would be
Totally lost. There is no escaping this.
The wave is flooding his heart,
And he is sending the flood
Her way. It rushes
Over her.
Can you look at one face
For the whole of a life?
Does the moon peer down
At the tides and hunger for home?

Michele Wolf

by this poet

It flares up at sunrise, a blush in a bramble
Tumbling out of its bed by the city pavement—a single
Rose, coral heat, at the end of the season.
And you are drawn to it, to its scent, its silky
Layers, to its core. It gathers you into its
Body until you lose your balance, all you can see
Is a petaled grid, an

As I was guided by the director through the thick space
Of these rooms, worn sparrow brown, and strode
With the August sun on my shoulders across this particular
Acre of grass, nobody had told me this was the place
Where you had summered as a boy. I have weathered
My fourth decade, older now than you were
When

The little one listens but never reveals
What she knows. By day she controls the light
That filters across the roofs, through
Trees, on furrows of plaintive faces.
She wakes up alone and unlocks
Cabinets of light, allots the portions
Strictly, patiently hears requests
For additional rays. What a job.
She has to